Table Of ContentLOOKING BACKWARD:
2000 TO 1887
Webster’s Thesaurus Edition for PSAT®, SAT®, GRE®, LSAT®,
GMAT®, and AP® English Test Preparation
Edward Bellamy
PSAT is a registered trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board and the National Merit
Scholarship Corporation neither of which sponsors or endorses this book; SAT is a registered
trademark of the College Board which neither sponsors nor endorses this book; GRE, AP and
Advanced Placement are registered trademarks of the Educational Testing Service which neither
sponsors nor endorses this book, GMAT is a registered trademark of the Graduate Management
Admissions Council which is neither affiliated with this book nor endorses this book, LSAT is a
registered trademark of the Law School Admissions Council which neither sponsors nor endorses this
product. All rights reserved.
Looking Backward: 2000
to 1887
Webster’s Thesaurus Edition for PSAT®, SAT®, GRE®, LSAT®,
GMAT®, and AP® English Test Preparation
Edward Bellamy
PSAT® is a registered trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board and the National Merit
Scholarship Corporation neither of which sponsors or endorses this book; SAT® is a registered
trademark of the College Board which neither sponsors nor endorses this book; GRE®, AP® and
Advanced Placement® are registered trademarks of the Educational Testing Service which neither
sponsors nor endorses this book, GMAT® is a registered trademark of the Graduate Management
Admissions Council which is neither affiliated with this book nor endorses this book, LSAT® is a
registered trademark of the Law School Admissions Council which neither sponsors nor endorses
this product. All rights reserved.
ICON CLASSICS
Published by ICON Group International, Inc.
7404 Trade Street
San Diego, CA 92121 USA
www.icongrouponline.com
Looking Backward 2000 to 1887: Webster’s Thesaurus Edition for PSAT®, SAT®, GRE®, LSAT®,
GMAT®, and AP® English Test Preparation
This edition published by ICON Classics in 2005
Printed in the United States of America.
Copyright ©2005 by ICON Group International, Inc.
Edited by Philip M. Parker, Ph.D. (INSEAD); Copyright ©2005, all rights reserved.
All rights reserved. This book is protected by copyright. No part of it may be reproduced, stored in a
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contact us to request permission (E-mail: [email protected]). ICON Group often grants permission
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research. Such reproduction requires confirmed permission from ICON Group International, Inc.
PSAT® is a registered trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board and the National Merit
Scholarship Corporation neither of which sponsors or endorses this book; SAT® is a registered
trademark of the College Board which neither sponsors nor endorses this book; GRE®, AP® and
Advanced Placement® are registered trademarks of the Educational Testing Service which neither
sponsors nor endorses this book, GMAT® is a registered trademark of the Graduate Management
Admissions Council which is neither affiliated with this book nor endorses this book, LSAT® is a
registered trademark of the Law School Admissions Council which neither sponsors nor endorses
this product. All rights reserved.
ISBN 0-497-01041-0
iii
Contents
PREFACE FROM THE EDITOR..........................................................................................1
AUTHOR’S PREFACE........................................................................................................3
CHAPTER 1......................................................................................................................5
CHAPTER 2....................................................................................................................13
CHAPTER 3....................................................................................................................19
CHAPTER 4....................................................................................................................29
CHAPTER 5....................................................................................................................35
CHAPTER 6....................................................................................................................43
CHAPTER 7....................................................................................................................47
CHAPTER 8....................................................................................................................55
CHAPTER 9....................................................................................................................61
CHAPTER 10...................................................................................................................71
CHAPTER 11...................................................................................................................79
CHAPTER 12...................................................................................................................87
CHAPTER 13...................................................................................................................99
CHAPTER 14.................................................................................................................109
CHAPTER 15.................................................................................................................115
CHAPTER 16.................................................................................................................123
CHAPTER 17.................................................................................................................129
CHAPTER 18.................................................................................................................139
CHAPTER 19.................................................................................................................143
CHAPTER 20.................................................................................................................151
CHAPTER 21.................................................................................................................155
CHAPTER 22.................................................................................................................161
CHAPTER 23.................................................................................................................175
CHAPTER 24.................................................................................................................179
CHAPTER 25.................................................................................................................183
CHAPTER 26.................................................................................................................193
CHAPTER 27.................................................................................................................207
CHAPTER 28.................................................................................................................217
GLOSSARY...................................................................................................................235
Edward Bellamy 1
PREFACE FROM THE EDITOR
Designed for school districts, educators, and students seeking to maximize performance on
standardized tests, Webster’s paperbacks take advantage of the fact that classics are frequently
assigned readings in English courses. By using a running thesaurus at the bottom of each page, this
edition of Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy was edited for students who are actively building
their vocabularies in anticipation of taking PSAT®, SAT®, AP® (Advanced Placement®), GRE®,
LSAT®, GMAT® or similar examinations.1
Webster’s edition of this classic is organized to expose the reader to a maximum number of
synonyms and antonyms for difficult and often ambiguous English words that are encountered in
other works of literature, conversation, or academic examinations. Extremely rare or idiosyncratic
words and expressions are given lower priority in the notes compared to words which are “difficult,
and often encountered” in examinations. Rather than supply a single synonym, many are provided
for a variety of meanings, allowing readers to better grasp the ambiguity of the English language,
and avoid using the notes as a pure crutch. Having the reader decipher a word’s meaning within
context serves to improve vocabulary retention and understanding. Each page covers words not
already highlighted on previous pages. If a difficult word is not noted on a page, chances are that it
has been highlighted on a previous page. A more complete thesaurus is supplied at the end of the
book; Synonyms and antonyms are extracted from Webster’s Online Dictionary.
Definitions of remaining terms as well as translations can be found at www.websters-online-
dictionary.org. Please send suggestions to [email protected]
The Editor
Webster’s Online Dictionary
www.websters-online-dictionary.org
1 P S A T ® i s a r e g i s t e r e d t r a d e m a r k o f t h e College Entrance Examination Board and the National Merit
Scholarship Corporation neither of which sponsors or endorses this book; SAT® is a registered
trademark of the College Board which neither sponsors nor endorses this book; GRE®, AP® and
Advanced Placement® are registered trademarks of the Educational Testing Service which neither
sponsors nor endorses this book, GMAT® is a registered trademark of the Graduate Management
Admissions Council which is neither affiliated with this book nor endorses this book, LSAT® is a
registered trademark of the Law School Admissions Council which neither sponsors nor endorses
this product. All rights reserved.
Edward Bellamy 3
AUTHOR’S %PREFACE
HISTORICAL SECTION SHAWMUT COLLEGE, BOSTON
DECEMBER 26, 2000
Living as we do in the closing year of the twentieth century, enjoying the
blessings of a social order at once so simple and logical that it seems but the
triumph of common sense, it is no doubt difficult for those whose studies have
not been largely historical to realize that the present organization of society is, in
its completeness, less than a century old. No historical fact is, however, better
established than that till nearly the end of the nineteenth century it was the
general belief that the ancient industrial system, with all its shocking social
consequences, was destined to last, with possibly a little patching, to the end of
time. How strange and wellnigh incredible does it seem that so prodigious a
moral and material transformation as has taken place since then could have been
accomplished in so brief an interval! The readiness with which men accustom
themselves, as matters of course, to improvements in their condition, which,
when anticipated, seemed to leave nothing more to be desired, could not be more
strikingly illustrated. What reflection could be better calculated to moderate the
enthusiasm of reformers who count for their reward on the lively gratitude of
future ages!
Thesaurus
accustom: (v) acquaint, habituate, intended, predestined, inevitable, unexceptional, normal, average, tiny,
season, adjust, teach, acclimate, prepared, foreordained, appointed. weak.
harden, adapt, inure, train, custom. ANTONYMS: (adj) unscheduled, readiness: (n) facility, ease, expedition,
blessings: (n) blessing, godsend. unlikely. preparation, promptness, knack,
completeness: (n) thoroughness, patching: (n) patch, tiling, fix, repair, dexterity, eagerness, quickness,
entirety, fullness, entireness, unity, reparation, plugging, connection, fitness; (adj, n) alacrity. ANTONYMS:
integrality, plenitude, burning, fixing. (n) reluctance, delay.
comprehensiveness, perfection, prodigious: (adj) gigantic, enormous, strikingly: (adj, adv) notably, signally,
totality, wholeness. ANTONYM: (n) huge, phenomenal, portentous, unusually, singularly; (adv)
incompleteness. stupendous, exceptional, colossal, prominently, stunningly, imposingly,
destined: (adj, v) bound, fated; (adj) immense, gargantuan; (adj, v) impressively, markedly,
predetermined, sure, inescapable, monstrous. ANTONYMS: (adj) outstandingly, obviously.
4 Looking Backward, 2000 to 1887
The object of this volume is to assist persons who, while desiring to gain a
more definite idea of the social contrasts between the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, are daunted by the formal aspect of the histories which treat the
subject. Warned by a teacher’s experience that learning is accounted a weariness
to the flesh, the author has sought to alleviate the instructive quality of the book
by casting it in the form of a romantic narrative, which he would be glad to fancy
not wholly devoid of interest on its own account.%
The reader, to whom modern social institutions and their underlying
principles are matters of course, may at times find Dr. Leete’s explanations of
them rather trite—but it must be remembered that to Dr. Leete’s guest they were
not matters of course, and that this book is written for the express purpose of
inducing the reader to forget for the nonce that they are so to him. One word
more. The almost universal theme of the writers and orators who have celebrated
this bimillennial epoch has been the future rather than the past, not the advance
that has been made, but the progress that shall be made, ever onward and
upward, till the race shall achieve its ineffable destiny. This is well, wholly well,
but it seems to me that nowhere can we find more solid ground for daring
anticipations of human development during the next one thousand years, than
by “Looking Backward” upon the progress of the last one hundred.
That this volume may be so fortunate as to find readers whose interest in the
subject shall incline them to overlook the deficiencies of the treatment is the
hope in which the author steps aside and leaves Mr. Julian West to speak for
himself.
Thesaurus
daunted: (adj) downcast, dispirited, ANTONYMS: (v) indispose, level; (n) nonce: (n) hour, nowadays, crisis,
discouraged, frightened, intimidated, hollow, descent. moment, instant, epoch, present, time
disheartened, dismayed, afraid, inducing: (v) induce, remind, call to being, minute, day.
abashed, bashful, discomposed. mind, suggest, bring to mind; (n) onward: (adv) ahead, forwards, before,
desiring: (adj) envious, insatiable, incentive, causing, causation, forth, onwards, along, in advance,
desirous, eager; (adv) fleshly. thought; (adj) cogent, persuasive. frontward, forrader; (adv, prep) on;
epoch: (n) era, date, period, day, ineffable: (adj) indescribable, (adj) progressive. ANTONYM: (adv)
season, time, term, cycle, crisis, date unspeakable, unutterable, backward.
of reference, times. indefinable, inexpressible, beyond weariness: (n) exhaustion, tiredness,
incline: (v) cant, dispose, bend; (n, v) expression, unimaginable, beyond lassitude, languor, asthenopia,
slope, bias, dip, tilt; (n) ascent, words, unpronounceable, dreadful, defatigation, grogginess, listlessness,
gradient, grade, inclination. untellable. boredom, ennui, prostration.
Edward Bellamy 5
CHAPTER 1
I first saw the light in the city of Boston in the year 1857. “What!” you say,
“eighteen fifty-seven? That is an odd slip. He means nineteen fifty-seven, of
course.” I beg pardon, but there is no mistake. It was about four in the afternoon
of December the 26th, one day after Christmas, in the year 1857, not 1957, that I
first breathed the east wind of Boston, which, I assure the reader, was at that
remote period marked by the same penetrating quality characterizing it in the
present year of grace, 2000.%
These statements seem so absurd on their face, especially when I add that I
am a young man apparently of about thirty years of age, that no person can be
blamed for refusing to read another word of what promises to be a mere
imposition upon his credulity. Nevertheless I earnestly assure the reader that no
imposition is intended, and will undertake, if he shall follow me a few pages, to
entirely convince him of this. If I may, then, provisionally assume, with the
pledge of justifying the assumption, that I know better than the reader when I
was born, I will go on with my narrative. As every schoolboy knows, in the latter
part of the nineteenth century the civilization of to-day, or anything like it, did
not exist, although the elements which were to develop it were already in
ferment. Nothing had, however, occurred to modify the immemorial division of
society into the four classes, or nations, as they may be more fitly called, since
the differences between them were far greater than those between any nations
Thesaurus
characterizing: (n) characterisation; fitly: (adv) appropriately, properly, mitigating; (n) justification, defense.
(adj) descriptive. fittingly, decorously, aptly, penetrating: (adj) astute, sharp,
credulity: (n) credulousness, befittingly, readily, accommodately, cutting, discerning, incisive, piercing,
trustingness, trust, innocence, expediently, suitly, justly. perceptive, discriminating, trenchant;
trustfulness, faith, lack of caution, immemorial: (adj) ancient, (adj, v) biting, acute. ANTONYMS:
navet, unwariness, acceptance. prescriptive, pristine, primaeval, (adj) mild, soft, mellow, low, gentle,
ANTONYM: (n) wariness. primeval, traditional, old, eternal, dull, dense.
ferment: (n) agitation, excitement, customary. provisionally: (adv) tentatively, for the
barm, tumult, unrest, disturbance; imposition: (adj, n) exaction; (n) cheat, time being, provisorily, conditionally,
(adj, v) stew, pother; (v) effervesce, trick, deceit, imposture, demand, momentarily, interimly, qualifiedly,
turn, brew. ANTONYMS: (v) quiet, hoax, tax, swindle, wile, infliction. briefly, transiently; (n) unless,
defuse, soothe. justifying: (adj) extenuating, without.
